This experimental episode came about because a few months back Sam asked me to be a beta tester for his Waking Up meditation app that he was creating at the time. It was recently released, and I highly recommend it. I anticipated it would be good because Sam’s work is always good, and he’s one of those rare humans who seems to think and speak in finished prose, and he has a voice that can very easily lull you into a semi-psychedelic state while you are completely sober. You’ll hear what I mean soon.

Sam has a unique combination of experiences and areas of expertise, and his approach is that of a logical progression of layering on different types of training for learning the skill of meditation. In this episode, Sam will discuss his experiences with MDMA, his spiritual exploration, contact with so-called gurus, duality versus non-duality, and lots more. If you want to dive right into a beginner level guided meditation, skip to [52:32].

Make sure to check out the bonus episode (also found on this page) if you enjoy what you find here and want to jump straight to the guided meditations. The bonus episode also features additional content from Sam not found in the longer episode. Enjoy!

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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SHOW NOTES

What you can expect from this episode (and why you probably shouldn’t listen to it while you’re driving a car). [07:21]

The Waking Up course app differs from other meditation apps. [08:39]

Sam’s background, and the journey his first foray into psychedelics would set in motion. [09:22]

Sam explains his views on religion and profound experiences some would call “spiritual” — which he set out to explore after that first experience with MDMA. [19:46]

Gradual versus sudden notions of realization or awakening, enlightenment versus cessation, and the distinction between meditation and psychedelics as tools. [22:09]

The meeting that led to a switch in Sam’s perspective on meditation after lengthy attempts for enlightenment proved unsuccessful. [31:05]

The dangers of guru Poonjaji’s “all or nothing” approach, the main difference between Advaita and Dzogchen teachings, and what it took to unravel one fellow student’s apparently confirmed enlightenment. [37:12]

Exploring Dzogchen and the context behind Sam’s current view of meditation. [42:32]

Perceiving the optic blind spot: the difference between being utterly misled by false information, being nudged in the general direction, and being precisely guided by an expert. [45:42]

One does not simply drop out of Stanford: Sam returns to college after 11 years away and finds himself uniquely qualified to unite his philosophical, scientific, and secular perspective with meditation. [50:24]

Why Sam believes the Waking Up course app and its guided meditations will benefit beginning and veteran meditators alike. [51:38]

Sam shares a 10-minute guided meditation from the course designed for a relative beginner to the practice of mindfulness. [52:32]

Sam shares a lesson from the course on the topic of death. [1:03:24]

Sam shares a lesson on the mystery of being. [1:10:33]

A 12-minute guided meditation from a little later in the course. [1:19:54]

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8 comments on “Sam Harris, Ph.D. — How to Master Your Mind (#342)”

Hi Tim — this note is about your interview with BJ Miller (https://tim.blog/2016/04/14/bj-miller/) in April 2016, but I thought I should leave it on your most current episode link in hopes you might see it. At the time the interview came out and I listened to it, my sister was nearing the end of her life; she had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer the previous spring. I was her “go-to” during this final year, and it was a profound experience. When I heard the interview, it resonated with me, as you can imagine. What I was thinking about constantly at that time was how things were going to end for my sister — what it would be like and whether I could help her and say the right things when that time came. She had been at home with Hospice help for several months, and we thought that she would be at home until the end, but a little extra care was needed at the eleventh hour, and she went to our local, lovely Hospice Center, where she died two days later. The morning she died, I suddenly remembered something that BJ Miller said in his interview — that at the Zen Hospice Center, they had a tradition of sprinkling the body with flower petals before it was taken away. This could not have been a more perfect and poignant a ritual for my family’s farewell to my sister, for whom gardening was a soulful, joyful practice. So in that moment, we took petals from the flowers friends had brought, and we gratefully used the Zen Hospice tradition to honor my sister. I wanted to thank you and BJ for this gift. (I should add that the Hospice here … and perhaps at all Hospice centers? — has a tradition they call the Honor Guard. All staff members on duty line the hallway as the patient and family leave the center. It was lovely.) Experiencing my sister’s last year with her was powerful, and I’m now working on a project that came out of that experience; my sister wanted to focus on the positive and that decision probably brought her more time with us in the end, but her desire to avoid talking about dying was tough for us. I realized I had strong ideas about how we could avoid this dilemma, and I’m trying to put them out into the world (love the Death Over Dinner model; my goal is different but related, of course). If you’d like to hear about it sometime, please feel free to email [Moderator: email address removed.]. Meanwhile, thank you again; I have gotten so much meaningful food for thought from your interviews, but it felt important to mention this particular story to you. Take care — Carla A.

Another excellent podcast!
The conversation about consciousness is always fascinating.

I would love to add here, the opinion of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875 – 1961), which goes something like this:
Long ago we were happy blissful animals living in harmony with nature’s rhythm.
When we became humans and developed consciousness we lost the happy state of being for the benefit of having the most powerful tool ever: the human mind.
There was a trade-off that we need to understand.
We paid a price to get a mind with consciousness of its self. We paid dearly to become civilized.
This, according to Jung is the hidden meaning of the fall of man from paradise.

This approach was made clear to me when I read the short story “The dog beneath the skin” by Oliver Sacks in the book “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”.
This short sorry is about a medical student who after ingesting a hallucinogenic drug develops the extra sensitive smell of a dog. His whole existence reverted to a happy animal state, while at the same time losing his ability for proper human efficiency. This lasted for some months. He regained his former state, while acknowledging that he would no longer be able to function in an organized society if he stayed longer like this.

My take on this is that basic existential unhappiness is the price we pay for being civilized.

Tim, I am a huge fan. I can’t however take anything Sam Harris says seriously when he regularly spews lies and hatred towards my way of life, which is Islam, and that of my fellow Muslims, all 1.6 billion of us. He of course also spews lies about Christianity too.

Below is one of numerous things Sam Harris has said that are absolutely FALSE and full of lies. Every single phrase is simply a lie.

I am a Muslim living in the West like millions of others. I live in peace and harmony with my Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Atheist and Sikh brothers and sisters. Sam Harris insist on telling you lies about me and my religion.

I have never heard Sam Harris actually speak with a Muslim scholar on any of the issues he has been continuously lying about for decades. He makes claims like this all the time with no basis or scholarship behind it.

“Throughout Western Europe, Muslim immigrants show little inclination to acquire the secular and civil values of their host countries, and yet exploit these values to the utmost — demanding tolerance for their backwardness, their misogyny, their anti-Semitism, and the genocidal hatred that is regularly preached in their mosques.”

There are a million examples I could give to show how every phrase is false – but you can do your research yourself.

The most remarkable part is that if he had said something similar about Jews, he would be ousted from all institutions and publicly vilified for being anti-semitic. He gets away with his hatred of Muslims and Islam simply because that’s become acceptable for a long time now.

I have many beautiful atheist friends. They completely and unapologetically stand against Sam Harris for simply adding more HATE into the world by constantly speaking out against literally billions of Christians and Muslims.

We don’t need more hateful people – we need more loving people in the world – whether they are religious or atheist. Sam Harris is one of the people spreading more hate. I am a Muslim. Like other fellow Muslims, I love all the human beings in the world. Like other religions, we have a few bad apples too – there is no denying that. Our bad apples just tend to make newspapers more money!

I’d further finish by saying that Dr. Harris could be an amazing force for good if he actually worked to build bridges with people of faith rather than spreading lies and hatred for them. His outreach with his good endeavors like the meditation app is severely limited due to his severely limited world view. He could learn a thing or two from great atheists like Dr. Stephen Hawking and others.

Tim great episode with Sam Harriss. The son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (Sam mentions him in the podcast) is teaching in Nepal within a week. You can find more info here [Moderator: link to website removed.]
Hope to see you around!

Hi Tim,
There is another person that researchers extensively about the topic Sam talked about in this podcast. I would suggest looking at work of Dr Jeffrey A Martin. Its quite remarkable what he achieved with his scientific approach toward the topic.
Best Regards

I think that Vipassana meditators are especially suitable for testing anesthetics and dissociatives which interfere with the respiratory system in order to get more real-time consciousness onto the dynamics of ATP production and usage by oxygen consumption. There have been some studies recently regarding that “Math with good posture can mean better scores” and there should be more non-brain localized variables affecting its typical output. There also are a few dusty russian dissertations regarding the usage of psychotropic drugs for somatic disorders and an article in Pubmed (in German) regarding regulation of kidney function by hypnosis. This is what I would like to ask this type of neuroscientist questions about.